Bagnaia won, Bezzecchi is second. The World Championship speaks more and more Italian.
– Francesco Bagnaia’s victory at Assen 2023 certainly counts among the least expected of his brilliant career. A very difficult Friday, in fact, was followed by a decent qualifying and a good sprint race. However, there was nothing foretelling such a clear-cut victory, also considering the state of health of his friend/rival Marco Bezzecchi. Instead Pecco, also this weekend, had the ace up his sleeve and led the race practically in its entirety. Another capital test of the World Champion, increasingly leader also of this edition of the MotoGP;
– He seemed to be the ruler of the race too. Instead Marco Bezzecchi had to settle for a second position after the pole position and the victory of the sprint Race on Saturday. In any case, a fantastic race by the VR46 Academy product rider, who managed to get rid of Binder too late to be able to try and catch Bagnaia at the head of the race. Almost perfect weekend for what seems to be more and more the heir of Valentino Rossiboth in terms of talent and the empathy he has managed to build with the fans;
– “Luckily you put the hard back”, “Yes, otherwise I was fucking you today too!”. “The day will come when you will give yourselves the bags for the championship!”. And laughter. All this happened in parc fermé, in perfect Italian, between Aleix Espargaró, Marco Bezzecchi and Francesco Bagnaia. The international direction will not be very happy, but how exciting the discussions in Italian of the post tender are!;
– Brad Binder’s departures are very reminiscent of those of Dani Pedrosa. And the similarities don’t end there: as often happened at Camomillo, a super start wasn’t necessarily followed by a victory (however, we recognize that Pedrosa is in the all-time top 20 of the world championship). In fact, Binder, after holding up to Bagnaia and Bastianini for 2/3 of the race, ended up collapsing towards the end, also being sucked in by Aleix’s Aprilia, who was fantastic today despite the damaged bike. In the end, penalized, he will lose the podium. In any case good Brad is almost consistently the best KTM on the trackdespite the cumbersome presence of Jack Miller as a neighbor in the pits;
– All difficult for Fabio Quartararo. After a great sprint race yesterday, which saw him on the podium again, a great race was expected from the 2021 world champion. Instead, a difficult start earlier and a contact with Zarco outside excluded him from the competition right from the start jokes. It’s a shame because in a circuit where the rider really makes the difference, Fabio once again proved that he was among the best riders on the track. Despite this Yamaha, which will eventually unnerve him. Assen really represented a breath of fresh air for Quartararo but the nightmare season doesn’t seem to want to give him a break. Now a month offto gather strength and to better clarify ideas for the future.